Message Board

Author King's Book
Reviews

A Letter of Mary
In the third volume in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, two more years have passed and the unlikely but sharp-minded couple are now married. A friend they met during their brief time in Palestine four years before, an amateur archaeologist named Dorothy Ruskin, returns to England to raise money for her projects and gives Mary Russell a beautiful carved wooden box from Renaissance Italy. Inside is a sheet of papyrus -- partly in Greek, partly in H...A Monstrous Regiment of Women
Mary Russell becomes involved with a semi-religious group which is headed by a intriguing woman named Margery Childe. Russell finds the group interesting because of its ties to religion, the social changes it tries to make, and perhaps above all, the odd, intense power Margery seems to have over her followers. There are several murders in this story, but it takes a bit before Russell begins to realize how they are tied together - and how she can determ...Folly
The main character, Rae Newborn, is a middle-aged woman who is feeling the aches and pains of a life with too many blows in it. The story opens as her daughter and granddaughter are dropping her off on Folly, an island off the coast of Washington where she is determined to rebuild a home and her life in near-complete isolation. We quickly learn that she suffers from panic attacks and has attempted suicide many times in her life. Even now she carries with...Justice Hall
Justice Hall is the sixth in a series of Sherlock Holmes and his wife and partner Mary Russell.
Russell and Holmes have just completed a case when an old friend pays them a visit, a friend from an earlier novel, O, Jerusalem. His cousin has suddenly been called upon to take the place as Duke of a “big name” English family (the Hughenforts) as those in the succession line ahead of him have been dying rather unexpectedly.
They go with him immediatel...

King booklist

Keeping Watch
The first half of the book is set in Vietnam, as the protaganist goes from an innocent young man to one haunted and corrupted by the violence he lives with every moment. It is a chilling picture of how one's thinking can become twisted, and how difficult it can be to right yourself.
After the war, Allen is truly a "basket case" and lives on the street. A series of events begin to change his perspective, and he becomes a civilian mercenary, rescuing ab...O Jerusalem
The fifth Sherlock Holmes-Mary Russell adventure actually takes place in time near the end of the first book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, when Holmes and Russell have raced off to Palestine to recover from a bombing and possibly do some secret government work for Holmes's brother Mycroft. The year is 1919. With Mary disguised as an Arab boy and Holmes as a Bedouin, the pair hooks up with Arab-British agents Mahmoud and his nephew Ali, and begin to invest...The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Young Mary Russell befriends Sherlock Holmes. They grow very close, especially because Russell lives with her tyrannical aunt (her parents died when she was little.) There are a few small mysteries in the course of the book, but the big question is: who's leaving all these clues that Holmes and Russell are in danger? It's possible, I guess, to figure it out before you're told, but I think it's VERY difficult. Anyway, the point of the story is not jus...The Game
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes hope they can rest awhile between cases, but then Mycroft, who is seriously ill, calls on them to do him a favor. One of his agents, Kimball O'Hara (aka Rudyard Kipling's "Kim") is missing, and he wants Russell and Holmes to find him. The two journey to India, where they encounter danger from unknown sources. Mary and Holmes split up (although they aren't separated as much as they were in the previous book, thank goodn...The Moor
In the fourth Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mystery, our pair travel west to the wild region of Dartmoor, partly at the request of Holmes's aged godfather, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould. There have been reported sightings on the moor of a ghostly coach carrying a long-deceased noble lady, and a man is found dead with large paw prints on the ground near his corpse. Could it be the Hound of the Baskervilles has somehow returned? As well written as its pr...